THE ASCENT Movie Review

Voskhozhdeniye

At the 1976 Telluride Film Festival, audiences were justifiably blown away by this daring and dynamic tale of World War II, in which the Nazis were not the only enemy of the beleaguered Russian people. Even hinting at the possibility of Russian collaboration with Germany during the war was almost unheard of in Soviet cinema, yet The Ascent focuses on it so unblinkingly that it seemed to take glasnost out to an almost undreamed of—and perhaps dangerous—precipice. Even viewed as just a “war movie,” The Ascent shows the sure hand of its remarkably skilled director every inch of the way. The picture, memorably photographed in a crisp black and white, is set in the cold, snowy expanses of Belarus, and it focuses on a captured partisan whose physical battles are nothing compared to the psychological war he faces against his Russian collaborationist interrogator. The Ascent's enormously talented, then-38-year-old director, Larissa Shepitko, answered questions with as much candor as she could after the Telluride screening, charming the audience and receiving great admiration for her courage and skill. Three years later she was dead, reportedly the victim of a traffic accident on a road as snowy as those depicted in her film. Whether it was life (or death) imitating art, a simple traffic accident, or causes unknown, the cinema world was robbed of an accomplished and hugely promising talent. Ultimately receiving a very limited release in the United States, The Ascent is ripe for rediscovery on video, and will, one hopes, spark interest in the life and work of its creator.

NEXT STOP … Prisoner of the Mountains, The Confession, Grand Illusion

1976 105m/B RU Boris Plotnikov, Vladimir Gostyukhin; D: Larisa Shepitko; W: Larisa Shepitko, Yuri Klepikov; C: Pavel Lebeshev, Vladimir Chukhnov; M: Alfred Schnittke.VHS IFC